Principles and Scope of Practice

The Centre for Teaching and learning is the academic service unit that promotes and supports quality teaching and builds teaching and educational leadership capacity in direct support of Queen’s students’ learning experiences. We support evidence-based, innovative and sustainable strategic program enhancement initiatives, and encourage and support emerging, grassroots investigations of novel approaches to teaching and learning.

Committed to implementing the four interconnected strategic drivers of Queen’s 2014-2019 strategic framework, we work with all Queen’s educators to enhance teaching and learning experiences by:

Promoting and profiling scholarly approaches to effective teaching and engagement in educational research;

Providing structures and support for the development of teaching, learning and scholarship;

Under the broad mandate to support Queen's educators in the development of teaching and assessment strategies, we provide leadership and support in three key areas of focus:

Learning Outcomes; Course/Curriculum Design and Review

Learning Spaces and Educational Technologies

Graduate Student and Post-Doctoral Teaching Development

and are working to support emerging interests in:

Educational Leadership Development

Educational Research

We also offer a variety of online materials and resources including podcast and lecture capture capabilities. Our staff is recognized across campus, nationally and internationally for their expertise, creativity, humour, and literature-informed, pragmatic approach to dealing with teaching and learning challenges and their solutions.

In addition, academic staff members of the CTL actively participate in institution-wide, Faculty and Departmental committees to inform the strategic direction of teaching and learning at Queen’s.

CTL Philosophy

The Centre for Teaching and Learning is committed to engaging with all Queen’s educators in their ongoing development of evidence-based practice and increasingly sophisticated conceptions of teaching and learning in order to meet the strategic goals of the institution. Our principles of practice:

Our work is educational and educative:

Our mandate is education-related; we collaborate on the improvement of teaching for the express purpose of improving students’ learning; our work is educative in that all stakeholders learn and develop through the process of engagement.

Our approach is developmental:

Our intention is to meet instructors where they are in terms of both conceptual and skill development and build on exhibited strengths. We work with rather than for instructors to help them achieve their goals for professional teaching development.

Our intention is to build both capacity and educational leadership

Our commitment is to provide expertise, support and resources to Faculties, Departments, Units and individual educators to create integrated and collaborative networks that are necessary for the ongoing development of teaching across campus.

In contacting the CTL for consultation or collaboration, Faculties, Departments, Units and individual instructors (including TAs, GTFs, and post-docs) can expect, as a standard of service:

to meet with an educational developer or associate for a consultation on any aspect of teaching, course or program development or review, curriculum, dossier development or educational research

to be provided with feedback, be supplied with or directed to resources, workshops, or like-minded colleagues and

to have a follow-up meeting to assess progress and plan next steps

Members of the CTL academic staff assume educational leadership positions as, guests, advisory members or chairs of institutional and Faculty committees including: